


I Will Love You the Whole Winter

by adelaide_rain



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec making inadvisable decisions, Angst, Between 3.17 and 3.18, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 11:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelaide_rain/pseuds/adelaide_rain
Summary: Alec has to find a way to help Magnus. If that means a deal with the devil, that’s a price that he’s willing to pay.





	I Will Love You the Whole Winter

Alec Lightwood is a man of action.

He always has been. It’s in his blood and his bones and his soul, it’s etched in runes across his skin and it’s shaped his body.

Yet he knows that some things can’t be solved by action alone. He’s not like his siblings, for whom every answer can be found in blade or whip, else in the breathless touch of a lover - though he’s starting to see the appeal of that these days. 

But even sex, while good, while mind-meltingly _amazing,_ isn’t enough. Not when as soon as they’re done, before they’ve even caught their breath, Alec reaches out to hold Magnus but finds him gone, the bed empty, himself hollow.

He gets it, Magnus’s need to act. To always be moving, doing, seeing, and he knows it isn’t FOMO. It’s pure distraction, a frenzy of action because if he’s _doing_ then he isn’t skirting the precipice of _thinking_ , that most treacherous of black holes.

It’s not comparable, not really, but before Alec came to terms with who he is, there had been nothing more dangerous than thinking. Lying in bed in the dark of night with nothing else to distract him, thoughts had crept insidiously into his mind: thoughts about the curve of another boy’s lips, wondering what they might feel like against his skin.

He hadn’t been able to stand the self-hatred that rose up in him, bitter as bile. Suffocated by darkness he’d whispered, furious and close to tears, _why are you doing this,_ like he could ever stop being who he is. To escape the thoughts, to escape himself, he’d gotten out of bed and gone to train, whatever the hour: midnight, 2am, 4am, and he’d trained until the sun rose and his hands bled from countless hours with bow or staff or sword. He’d stumbled through the days too tired to think of anything beyond remembering runes or demonology or tactics, and his mother had been so proud of her boy, not knowing he was drowning and dying and breaking under everything he was doing to himself.

So he understands, more than Magnus thinks he does. 

But understanding is not enough. Now Magnus is the one drowning and dying and breaking but unlike Maryse, Alec sees it. He wants to help, he _has_ to help, but he doesn’t know how. Whenever he tries, Magnus deflects and he’s a master, using kisses or sweet words or late night arancini to distract him. Alec doesn't realise it’s happened until the next day or the one after, until he’s halfway through reading a report and he suddenly remembers that Magnus never answered his question. 

Maybe it’s arrogant for Alec to think that a pup of a Shadowhunter can even start to help a centuries-old warlock come to terms with mortality, but Magnus’s self-destruction is something Alec recognises too well, and though it’s stained with bourbon rather than bloody hands, the wounds slice just as deep.

Everything in him thrums with frustration, with the need to act, to _do_ something, but what? Everything he’s thought of and everything he’s tried has been wrong-footed and clumsy and hopelessly misguided, from dinners to flowers to the Lightwood ring locked in his desk drawer, a bad idea that he hopes will be a good idea, one day.

But today… Today Magnus is lost and Alec is adrift in his wake. 

He has one last idea.

It originally came to him a few days ago. Jace and Clary had been telling him about some demon they’d dispatched, but Alec had missed most of the report because his mind was in overdrive, thoughts chaining together: _demon_ leading to Magnus’s father, leading to Asmodeus having Magnus’s magic, leading to him giving it back, leading to _making_ him give it back.

“Alec?” Jace had asked, snapping him back to the room. “Are you alright?”

Alec had said yes, and he was. He didn’t need Asmodeus. He was going to propose to Magnus and show him that he didn’t care whether or not Magnus had his magic, Alec _loved_ him, and that would be enough. 

But it wasn’t. 

This isn’t a fairy tale, and happy ever afters don’t come cheap.

Whatever the cost, though, Alec is willing to pay it, even if it means a deal with the devil.

Now Alec sits at his desk in the Institute, looking at three things resting on its surface: the address of a warlock; a bag of gold coins; a book about the Princes of Edom, the section on Asmodeus flush with fluorescent page tabs. 

He won’t summon Asmodeus - he’s not that much of a fool - but he has to talk to him. What else can he do? All he can think of is Magnus saying his magic is worth dying for, Magnus weeping in his arms, Magnus laid bare, the sharp shattered pieces of him cutting them both bloody. 

Some things can’t be solved by action alone, but Alec has run out of options and he would face any danger to help Magnus, face any foe, would gladly stare death or demon in the face. 

Alec Lightwood is a man of action, and so he takes a breath and then he stands, putting address and bag of gold coins in his pockets.

And he acts.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [here.](https://asighlikewhisper.tumblr.com/post/175251109834/youknowyouarerussianwhen-hello-my-dear-heres-a)
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/adelaide_rain) and sometimes on [tumblr.](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com/)


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